The Incredibles

Pixar is known for their quality productions ever since Toy Story made it’s debut. While their animation style and animation technology are at the forefront in it’s discipline, Pixar excels at another, if not many more, thing: story telling.

With every film, Pixar releases a digitally rendered movie that is not only perfect eye candy, but also possibly a masterpiece. After the debut of UP, their tenth feature film, Pixar remains the only studio to produce such high grossing consecutive movies. Even Toy Story 2, a sequel to Toy Story, may have beat it’s predecessor in money and popularity. What I will talk about today is Pixar’s The Incredibles.

The Incredibles is no exception. While The Incredibles is not Pixar’s most recent movie, I decided to have a second viewing since it had been a while. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons. It stars an ensemble cast including Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson and Elizabeth Pena. The film stars the Parr family, who each have superpowers. After the government orders superheroes to live a normal life, Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson – who also starred in The Family Stone <- must see movie for the holidays), who formerly went under the superhero alias “Mr. Incredible” secretly relives his days as a superhero, behind his family’s back. The Incredibles was originally developed as a traditionally-animated film for Warner Bros., but after the studio shut down its division for fully animated theatrical features, Bird took the story with him to Pixar, where he reunited with John Lassater. The Incredibles turns out to be Pixar’s sixth feature film, and is the first feature film by Pixar to have an entire human cast of characters. First were toys, then bugs, then toys again. Most people would think that movies that don’t have humans as main characters would take away from the movie, but I find this assumption wrongly placed. I find that when Pixar chooses these non-human protagonists and antagonists, we discover the limitless potential and creativity that Pixar is known for.
I recently watched a special feature film called “The Pixar Story,” which was on Disc 2 of 3 in the retail packaging of WALL-E. About an hour and a half, the documentary shed light on so many things that Pixar does, for example, the number of people and the details that are channeled into producing a Pixar film is mind-boggling. They have entire teams of people just to work on the dust that floats by for a couple of seconds in the movie.

My mother told me about a relative of mine, who was interested in animation. She pounced on a job at Disney Animations and worked on Mulan. Now, that seems pretty awesome, and it IS awesome, but as fate would have it, this relative of mine ended up only drawing the eyes of Mulan for every frame. Now that takes commitment, dedication and a certain capacity to not go insane. Just goes to show how every man in the Pixar house has an essential role (if not a tedious one).

So – enough babbling. I would just like to recommend that if you ever buy DVDs of Pixar, Studio Ghibli, or any other company that makes movies that are super awesome, or that you just plain like, watch the featurettes; especially the ones that involve how they made the movie. Now. On to the review.

The Incredibles is about a family of superheroes. I’m sure many of you have watched this movie and know all about it, but since you’re reading this blog, I guess you’re interested in what I have to say about it. =P Consequently, the human world was teeming with superheroes who saved the day from bad-boy criminals that decided to dominate earth every other day. But one day, when Mr. Incredible saves a man from his suicide jump off a building and is sued for such an action, the superheroes we love disappear without a trace. Imagine Gotham without Batman, Metropolis without Superman, and New York City without Spiderman. Our world would be a mess, wouldn’t it? Well. That’s what Pixar thought too, so they decided to create a villain, who apparently has ZERO superpowers, named Syndrome. What kind of lame name is that. I would definitely not want to be saved by something called Syndrome. An illness saving my life? No thanks.

But somewhere during the demise of superheroes, two love birds get married, Mr. Incredible, a man of incredible strength, and Elastigirl, a woman of incredible flexibility. If you add 1+1, then of course, their children, Violet, a girl with incredible invisibility and shield powers. And Dash, a boy with incredible speed, would have super powers. Yeowch. Oh YEAH.
The remaining part of the plot involves unraveling Syndrome’s dark plans, a James Bond-esque search, rescue, and destroy mission and family trauma. Sure, maybe the last thing doesn’t seem like it’ll fit in, but it does; that’s what makes Pixar uber awesome.

Production quality of this movie is top notch, as expected. Animation is fluid and most movements never seem awkward. The contrast of colors between Mr. Incredible’s dull, white work office space and the forsaken jungle that he fights on. It’s difficult to really comment on the individual aspects for this film since not only have I written this article over a span of several weeks, but the elements flawlessly seam together to make a whole. This means that when I watch the movie, it was difficult for me to individually observe the 3D rendering, or the dialogue, or the music. Unlike in typical anime, where despite the elements not meshing together quite the same they have their own influences, I find that Pixar movies truly bring out the mood with everything they do.

I feel like I didn’t word that correctly. Don’t burn me, since I am not trashing anime in any respect (I <3333 anime). Since I am not thinking straight right now, I will return and edit this comment later. As a whole, I found The Incredibles truly entertaining. The film had the Pixar humor, or John Lassater’s humor to be exact, and was a breeze to watch. I found certain elements so fun to watch, especially when the Incredibles family uses their powers in their everyday lives. Since I am beginning to run out of things to say, I shall move on to the screen caps.

SCREENCAPS

Ka-pow! What a fine lady.

You need to be a little more….flexible.

Rawwwwrrrr.

Why didn’t they make Frozone have water instead of ice powers. Far more useful.

Boy-crush alert.

Wut. This guy is ugly!

Now you can see how Pixar rendered Mr. Incredible’s face.

Holographic Pokemon Card! MINEMINEMINE.

That mountain in the middle is frighteningly pointy.

Moses opening the sea of flames.

This babysitter looks so undependable

Why don’t sketchbooks come in sizes as large as me too?

I don’t understand how they can hear each other.

I suppose Mr. Incredible’s Death Note turned out to be effective.

Pixar’s take on Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

Spiderman from the North.

Cue James Bond Soundtrack ~ note: the use of superpowers is ingenious here.